Rant: Found out my buddy's coin collection was worth 3 times mine

I was at a diner last Saturday and ran into this old guy named Jerry who collects silver dollars. He casually mentioned he's got a 1921 Peace Dollar that graded MS65 and I was like, wait, mine's just sitting in a flip. He told me he spends 15 minutes a week checking grading guides online and getting second opinions at shows. That hit different because I've been buying coins for 2 years and never once looked up the actual grade of anything. Now I'm worried I've overpaid for junk and undersold some good stuff. Has anyone else realized they've been storing valuable coins wrong or missing out on grading?

3 comments

3 Comments

barbarah1918d ago

My cousin had a similar thing happen but with vintage comic books. He's been collecting silver age stuff since the 90s and one day his buddy shows up with a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #50 that he had graded and slabbed and it was a 9.0. Turns out my cousin had the same issue in a box under his bed that he used to read as a kid, got it graded and it came back a 2.0 because of all the cover wear and spine ticks. He was so mad he didn't get it graded 20 years ago when it was in better shape. Now he stores everything in Mylar bags with acid free boards and won't even let me touch his stuff without gloves.

ellis.susan18d ago

OH MAN this hits SO close to home! @adamk95 you're absolutely right about those cardboard flips being worthless, I learned that the hard way too. What finally worked for me was biting the bullet and submitting my three best Morgans to NGC just to see what happened. One came back MS63 when I thought it was barely AU, and another was cleaned (which I had NO clue about). Now I keep a cheap 10x loupe on my desk and check every new pickup under a desk lamp before I even pay for it. Seriously saved me from buying a "BU" Peace dollar that was actually just polished to hell.

adamk9518d ago

I had the exact same wake-up call three months ago when I found out my 1889 Morgan dollar was actually a VAM-3 and worth about four times what I paid for it. I felt like an idiot because I'd been storing everything in those old cardboard flips that basically do nothing for the coin. Now I'm checking PCGS CoinFacts almost every weekend and actually sending a few things in for grading this month.

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